§13.But the final test would not consist in determining whether increased costs and diminished utilities did or did not offset the prima facie advantages of the economic improvements.The art of social welfare, humanism, will insist upon considering the reactions of the standardisation of work and consumption upon other faculties and functions than the economic, and in considering prospective as well as present gains.A scientific rigour in economy of work and of expenditure, which should remove, both from the industry and the lives of the great masses of a population, all opportunities for initiative, experiment, risk-taking and the display of personality, might reduce the human value of life for the average man, and so impair the worth of the society.Humanism, therefore, while approving the application of science to the arts of production and consumption, insists that it shall be shown to be the servant not the master of humanity.Such proof is sought, because the assumption, so often made, that all such economic progress must be humanly profitable, is seen to be unwarranted.
A 'scientific' view of human industry would establish the following lines of investigation.
(1) The productive ability of each producer would be considered in relation to its technical efficiency, i.e., the best way for him to do his job.
(2) His special productive function would be considered in its reactions (a) upon his general standard of life on its economic side, i.e., in relation to his productive and consumptive functions; (b) upon his individual human life.
(3) The standard of consumption of each consumer would be considered in relation to its technical efficiency (a) for purposes of production;(b) for purposes of individual welfare.
(4) Industry as a social function would be subjected to criticism from the wider standpoint of social welfare, i.e., as one element contributing to the life of a nation.
Finally, an analysis of the human worth of existing industry on its productive and consumptive sides would not suffice.For such an analysis merely accepts the existing system of industry and enquires into the best human methods of working it.
But humanist criticism must, of course, go behind this acceptance.
The problem of industry which it will envisage will be one that takes as its data the existing resources of the nation, natural and human, and considers how these resources may, in accordance with present knowledge, be best applied for the provision of organic welfare according to the best accepted interpretation of that term.However difficult it may be to secure, to justify and to apply that standpoint, this is the form in which the economic problem must present itself to the statesman, the publicist, and the social reformer, so far as they are clear-sighted, rational and disinterested in their work.
So regarded, each individual would be considered as a complex of activities and wants, whose specialised work for society must be harmonised with that freedom and exercise of his non-specialised functions needed to enable him to realise himself as a human personality.Due consideration would be given to the interplay of his productive and consumptive functions within his economic life.His economic life must, however, be kept in due subordination to his wider human life, consisting, as the latter does, mainly of non-economic functions.
Finally, his economic and human life as a personality must be harmonised with the economic and human life of the society of which he is a member.
Such are the main implications of what might be termed the human scientific calculus of industrial values.
NOTES:
1.The Principles of Scientific Management (Harper & Bros.).
2.Op.cit., p.65.
3.The Principles of Scientific Management , p.74.
4.The Principles of Scientific Management , p.100.
5.'While one who is not experienced at making his men really enthusiastic in their work cannot appreciate how athletic contests will interest the men, it is the real secret of the success of our best superintendents.
It not only reduces costs, but it makes for organisation and thus saves foremen's time.' F.G.Gilbreth, Bricklaying System , p.13.
6.The Principles of Scientific Management , p.83.
7.Taylor, p.85.
8.Op.cit., p.103.
9.Op.cit., p.37.
10.Taylor , p.1 26.
11.Taylor, p.59.
12.Psychology and Industrial Efficiency.
13.Op.cit., p.23.
14.Op.cit., p.66.
15.Op.cit., p.85.
16.This rationalisation of life for distinctively economic purposes, alike on its productive and expenditure side, has been carried further by the Jews than by any other people, i.e., their religion, politics, eugenics and education have been directed more exclusively and more rationalistically towards the business arts in which they excel, those of the financier, undertaker, trader, than in the case of other peoples.See Sombart, The Jews and Modern Capitalism , Chs.IX and X.
